Referrals are the lifeblood of a moving company. But just as important as generating referrals as a source of new business leads, equally critical is tracking those referrals and tracing won business back to specific referral sources and referrals themselves.
Not only does this tracking provide valuable analytics in terms of where new leads are coming from, but it also informs the marketing strategy as well. By knowing where referrals are coming from, a moving company can be sure it’s spending its hard-earned dollars on marketing that actually gets a return on investment.
How to Trace Referrals and Track Success
Referrals to a moving company can come in many forms and from an ever-growing number of sources. From Yelp! and Google Reviews to Facebook and other social media, and even to word-of-mouth more generally, referrals come in all shapes and sizes. The trick is tracking them, cataloging them, and later using that data to inform important business decisions, from operations to human resources and, of course, advertising and marketing.
From a marketing standpoint, tracking referrals and tracing each back to its lead source allows a moving company to observe and act on important marketing strategies, empowering the company to:
- Break down each individual marketing source by leads, jobs booked, booking percentage, amount spent on marketing channel versus the amount of revenue generated by each source.
- Track profits for every channel, test campaigns, and make adjustments.
- Clearly understand what works best for the business and “double down” on it.
- Trace which referral sources and lead providers are generating the best leads.
- Stop wasting money on unprofitable marketing sources.
- Reallocate marketing and advertising spend to the best performing channels and maximize ROI.
The old way of tracking and tracing leads for a moving company would typically involve appointing the person answering the phones as the gatekeeper. He or she would take the call and be sure to ask the potential customer where or how they heard about the moving company. That receptionist would then enter that data into a spreadsheet, or if more sophisticated, a customer relationship manager (CRM) software solution.
Two challenges arise from doing things the old way:
- This methodology only works if both the person answering the phone and the customer calling in perform this step each time and with exacting precision. But both participants are human, and sometimes a receptionist forgets to ask, and other times, the customer either can’t remember how they heard of the moving company or provides incomplete answers such as “online” or “I saw an ad somewhere.”
- The old way was more reliable when a phone call was the only way to inquire about getting an estimate for a moving company. Nowadays, leads can come from anywhere: social media, advertising, direct mail, email campaigns, digital marketing, and so on. Many leads come into a moving company that aren’t even trackable by humans, because a human may never even see them.
For these reasons, more and more moving companies are investing in robust and sophisticated software that can track and trace referrals and other leads electronically and store that data to later use as valuable marketing intelligence.
How to Determine if Referral Tracing Software is Right for You
If you’re a moving company owner and you’re asking yourself any or all of these questions, finding a robust but intuitive referral tracking solution is right for you:
- What marketing source has the best ROI?
- Are we closing enough sales?
- Why are we losing leads?
- What is my average crew rating?
- What does my revenue forecast look like?
- How is my sales team performing?
- Why are we losing leads?
In the modern, competitive environment for moving companies, owners can’t build a successful, sustainable business without clarity on the numbers driving success or failure. Now more than ever, it’s critical to have complete clarity on where your best leads are coming from, which referrals drive your most profitable business opportunities, and how and where to make your marketing and advertising investments to optimize return on investment.
Most moving companies understand that referrals are, indeed, the lifeblood of the company. And many actively pursue forming referral relationships with real estate agents and other local businesses.
Before you do that, however, you’ll need to have a good system in place for keeping track of your partnerships, referrals, and leads. Make sure you have all the tools you need to launch a successful referral program, including software to track, store and report on wins and losses. Your partners will be able to personalize their own referral sites, allowing you (and them) to track the leads they send your way. This shows that you’re running a professional operation and gives partners confidence in your program.
This makes tracing referrals a win-win-win for both the moving company and referral partners alike.
The most profitable, most professional, and most trustworthy moving companies use referral tracing software to help optimize profitability. Moving company software such as SmartMoving helps industry professionals track referrals and leads to make more informed marketing decisions. Contact us to see if such software can help take your business to the next level by increasing profitability and transforming the way you do business.